Page 61 of The Madame Catches Her Duke

“Did you and your father quarrel?”

Rowan chuckled—a deep, wounded sound. “Heavens, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I never spoke of that night to him, nor paid any attention when he disappeared each night. He was a man above reproach in my youthful eyes. A man I adored. The man I emulated. And he was a fraud. I couldn’t bring myself to ask after any of it—it would only have hurt me more, and it wouldn’t have changed anything. Instead, I lavished all my time and energy on my mother, especially after she was sent to Hadlow and her sickness grew worse.

“I stood before Craven House in the rain and watched through the window as my father read a bloody book to a gathering of children who were not his, as his own offspring perished before they’d even taken their first breath.”

“Oh, Rowan, I did not know.” Marce started for him, but his narrow-eyed glare halted her in her tracks before she’d taken even three steps. “I swear, my siblings and I never knew that Julian had a family. And after my mother died, he rarely visited. I never thought much about the man after that.”

Rowan’s glare swung toward the flames in the hearth. “By the time I made my way home—on foot, I’d bid my driver to leave me outside your home—my sisters were gone, and my mother was near death’s door. And my father, he was in the arms of another woman.”

Marce had nothing to say. It was a pain she did not know, nor one she could ever fully understand—the love of a boy for his father shattered so violently. And then to live all these years without speaking of it? It was enough to bring Marce to her knees with the imagined pain of it all.

“You—your family—were the only one left to exact atonement from.”

“But we were innocent in it all. Even you, Rowan.”

“Do you not think I know that now?” he snapped. “But that does not repair anything…my mother’s abandonment, and my…”

His words trailed off, and he closed his eyes tightly, rubbing his forearm across his face.

“Hurt,” she said for him. “It is past time you accepted that it also wounded you, Rowan. It is a pain I cannot fathom, but I do not lack compassion.”

His reasons for doing as he had after his father’s death had always been a mystery to her. Yet now, with each word he spoke, Marce understood his need for vengeance and retribution, even if it was misplaced.

“What now?” Marce was clear on her next move, the path she’d decided on for herself, but what of him? “Leona will be hurt by your—our—deception.”

No matter what happened between her and Rowan, it was Leona who would be devastated by the outcome.

“Why?” It was the burning question she’d longed to ask since he walked into her mother’s office at Craven House. “Why did you demand I act as your wife when we both knew it could come to this?”

Chapter 26

Rowan longed to throw her from the townhouse, forget their conversation, and demand that his anger return. Speaking of his family’s past and confronting his own grave mistakes was not something any man wanted to do before an audience—especially the woman he’d wronged while attempting to come to terms with losing his father and confronting the incessant rage that filled him.

Saying the words aloud, detailing what had transpired that night and over the last fourteen years was crushing. His flaws and transgressions were laid bare before him, and he could no longer deny them. He wanted to turn from them, yet could not look away.

“I had no right to demand anything of you.” He focused on the flames once more, refusing to meet her stare, though he felt it on him.

“I want to know why.”

“And I want to forget it all.”

“You brought it up, Rowan,” she seethed. “I deserve an honest answer.”

She deserved far more than that from him. He’d stolen eight years of her life and all but forced her into their arrangement, thus robbing her of a future of her choosing. But how could he admit the selfish reason behind his proposition?

“My father had just died, and I believed my mother would follow soon after,” he growled. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself, dampening his rage at the mention of his father. Rowan would save his fury for a later time. “She was growing sicker and sicker as the days passed. She fretted that I would be alone when she died—my mother was sick with worry, but not over her own health. She was scared that she’d succumb to her illness and leave me, her only child, alone.”

“So you concocted your scheme to give her peace.” Her words held no accusation but possessed a softness he didn’t deserve.

“Yes, to give her a small measure of peace.” He hadn’t admitted this, even to himself. “It hadn’t been the plan when I arrived at Craven House that night. I’d fully expected to confront your mother for stealing my father from us, but she was gone—and you were there.”

Marce said not another word, and Rowan chanced a glance at her. It was a mistake, for the look on her face—her downturned lips and furrowed brow—bordered on pity. How could she feel sorry for him after everything he’d put her through?

“Fortunately, news of our marriage gave my mother a new lease on life.”

“She is a loving, sincere, and patient woman,” Marce said with a smile.

“She deserves happiness, something I was determined to give her—am still determined to give her.”